in the south primary. jeb bush was in columbia today. the presidential candidate spoke with supporters at f.n. manufacturing off old clemson road. >> yeah, this is just on the heels of his north charleston appearance yesterday with his brother former president george w. bush. the elder bush rallied voters in the lowcountry to support his brother's bid for the white house after poor performances in iowa and new hampshire. >> jeb will listen to the voices of the disenfranchised. he will rise above the petty name calling. and once elected, he will not need a poll or a focus group to tell him how to think or what to do. he will stand on principle. he will not waiver in the wind and he will always do what's right for american people. >> and we have a crew at this afternoon's town hall. jeb bush just wrapping up soon here and he is getting ready to

leesville as well as aiken. of course, we'll have much more on this story tonight on the news at 11:00. >> marco rubio will be in buford today and he's expected to make a stop along the coast. here's what the g.o.p. candidate had to say to supporters during a campaign stop just yesterday. >> i will bring us together and as you saw in the debate the other night, there's some real differences going on right now and they love it. the democrats love that stuff. they cheer every time we call each other names, we fight. we bicker. these debates get us at each other's throat, the longer this goes on, the worse it's going to be. i can unify this party and i can grow it. >> ted cruz is set to speak at a rally with rick perry and duncan at the armory and cruz will be making stops in anderson and mount pleasant today. and they aren't the only candidates vying for your vote. john kasich will be reaching out

lexington while ben carson has stops in aiken later today. donald trump will be in north augusta and buford. and trump is not the only one stopping on the campaign trail. he's come armed with a new wave of attacks. >> that's right. trump is threatening to sue the texas senator over cruz's eligibility to serve in the white house. now, the billionaire real estate mogul has previously said a federal court should decide whether or not cruz meets the constitutional requirement of being a natural born citizen to serve as president. now, trump says he'll file suit over the issue unless cruz retracts his lies and stops airing false ads. >> very latest polls among likely south carolina republican primary voters taken the day before saturday's debate in greenville keeps trump on top of the g.o.p. pack. trump holds a large lead in south carolina with 42% of the likely republican primary voters who joined the survey. ted cruz follows with 20% while marco rubio garnered 15%.

republican candidates had numbers below 10%. meanwhile, the democratic presidential candidates are hoping to win over some votes ahead of next saturday's primary. >> indeed they are. bernie sanders was in columbia this morning attending the faith and justice breakfast at allen university. the event which has now wrapped up was free and open to the public. you can see the crowd there and bill clinton will be campaigning in the upstate for his wife. democratic presidential hopeful hillary clinton a little later on today. well, the passing of long time supreme court justice antonin scalia could end up -- end upping the ante when the upcoming primary for the presidential election. now, should the president name a nomination but it is not confirmed that naming scalia's successor would be a priority of the next president of the united states. itit something policeal experts say increases the importance of south carolina's upcoming primary. >> the stakes have just

south carolina is the first state that gets to determine who moves forward from there. >> now, scalia was a constant conservative voice in his three decades of service. his now open seat continues to add fuel to an already heated presidential debate. >> remember, if you can't make it out to the polls this saturday for the republican primary or next saturday for the democratic primary, your absentee application must be mailed in by today. absentee voters can vote in person or by mail. you can get an absentee application on line or request an alication from your county voter registration office. once you receive that absentee ballot, be sure to return it to your county voter registration office by 7:00 saturday night. good information. one thing that is not absent as you look behind us here at main and gervais, talking about that sunshine and happy to see it return but question is will warm weather come along with it? >> we're all hoping so. let's turn things over to meteorologist jonathan kennedy for a look at the first forecast. hey, jonathan.

if i can keep this weather going for a little longer, i might get a couple of write-in votes for the primary voters. sunshine today and rainy start this morning. complete opposite end of the spectrum for us here this afternoon. we're looking at as our roof cam here 58 degrees, sunny skies. not a cloud in the sky for us here as we look out towards the statehouse and off to the south and southeast. right now, winds out of the west and northwest around 10 to 15 miles per hour. so going to be a little breezy for us. we're seeing a big changeover from that very wet atmosphere we were seeing this morning to more of a drier setup this afternoon and a lot of that being aided by those winds out of the west and southwest. what that's going to do is bring us a lot more of that dry air and kick out that a little longer. that is moving on and moving up the east coast. bring a lot of rain for those areas there. for us, the rain is done. we are watching a system bacac to the west very fast moving system kind of coming through the lower part of the midwest and central plains.

we'll be watching that system as it moves throughout the day today. but i do think that will stay to our north. because of that, we'll stick with the sunshine. look for highs in kind of low to mid 60's this afternoon. nice to see the 60's return to the forecast after only being in th30's yesterday afternoon. tonight, 42. partly cloudy skies. notice, no chance of rain. will that hold up for the rest of the week and weekend? i'll have the details coming up in a few minutes. >> the police department has cleared two of its officers in the deadly shooting of a motorist last november. the department has released dash cam video from that night. we want to warn you, though, some viewers may find this video disturbing. >> that's right. take a look at this, 21-year-old demetrius bryant died in a shootout with officers. that confrontation escalated after one of the officers found car. officer rhett kelly and sergeant frank valentine did not violate night. police say valentine has

week while kelly continues to recover from officers andnd work on limited duty. and columbia police continue searching for two suspects who are accused of shooting at a victim's son after stealing a car. >> laticia baskets says she left her car running to heat it up. when she returned, the car was gone. her son spotted the road and a short chase ensued until the car crashed into the greenwood neighborhood sign. he tells abc columbia news when he approached the suspects, one opened fire before both fled. >> all i really want to do is get the guys that took my mom's car, you know, my mom work hard every day for the little bit of stuff she does. i hope they get locked out. if you do it now, you'll do it again. >> if you have any information that could help authorities in this case, you're asked to call crimestoppers at 1-888-crimesc. the director of the south carolina department of health

attendance today. that news conference is taking place at 1:00 this afternoon. it's right across the street from us at the statehouse. >> that's right. and also at the statehouse this afternoon, lawmakers say it is a hard road ahead for bills looking to raise the minimum wage here in south carolina. in a republican dominated legislature. while democrats say they have virtually no chance of passing, they add they hope to spark a debate as the nation's attention turns to the state for the first in the south primary. still, republicans contend the bill would hurt the economy. >> we have an important deadline to those of you working to recover following october's historic flooding. taxpayers impacted by the floods who were offered an extension for returns and payments, you should know that deadline to file is today. and that extension is for returns and payments due between october 1st and today, february 16th. now, if you're a resident or a business in an affected county, there are a few ways you can get

on a paper filer affected taxpayer should write scflood at the top of paper returns or complete the disaster area check box if one is provided for you. should you receive a penalty notice, you should call the number listed on that notice. for more information on tax relief and payment methods, be sure to visit dor.sc.gov. >> lot of good information there. u.n.c.'s delta zeta sorority is helping others today with the bone marrow and blood drive. students and faculty will have the opportunity to give blood and register for the national marrow donor program be the match. the event will take place at the russell house ballroom until 5:00 tonight. plenty of time to get out there and give. and a local author is announcing he has pancreatic cancer. pat conroy from buford, south carolina made the announcement on his facebook page just yesterday. the 70-year-old did not give many details about his diagnosis

that statement that he promises to "fight it hard." and that he owes fans a novel and intends to deliver it. conroy has written a dozen books including "the prince of tides" which is a very popular one and "the great santini" and that is a story that we'll continue to follow as it develops. it might still be winter but that's not keeping some people from getting their palate ready for a sweet treat. >> get your taste buds ready.

gervais. >> welcome back. it was a night full of fashion, performances and those golden globe awards. >> yeah, if missed last night's 58th annual grammy awards show, it was a big night for rapper kendrick lamar. he won five of his 11 nominations and received a standing nomination after his performance at the awards show. album of the year honors went to taylor swift for her "1989" song. she's unstoppable and this year's record of the year "uptown funk" featuring bruno mars. >> did you know that taylor swift has won two years in a row best album? >> i did know that. she's amazing. onslaught of unhappy comcast customers are taking to twitter this afternoon. this comes after the company saw service outages across the country yesterday. one twitter user demanded the company "get more employees and offer same day help." the comcast spokesperson says they fixed the problem and almost all services have been restored.

cool off some of those hot customers. ben and jerry's is putting a different spin on dessert. they've created a series of nondairy treats for vegans and those who are lactose intolerant. the results, four decadent flavors. two were spins on the flavors chunky monkey and chocolate fudge brownie. the two other brands new and only available in nondairy. they are coffee caramel fudge and cookies that all sound delicious. ben and jerry's sean greenwood says pints are already being shipped out and most stores should have them in two to four weeks. get your wallet ready. going out for ice cream. >> a couple of days ago, we didn't think we'd be saying it feels like weather we can get some ice cream. sun is shining.g. it's nice outthere. >> h h long will it stick

full forecast next. >> welcome back to abc columbia news at 12:30. it's been a tale of two forecasts today. we started out warm but rainy but now we're seeing warm air but sunshine. thankfully the one thing we haven't seen today is cold air. it's relatively cool for us. we're seeing temperatures similar to what we saw earlier this morning. if you're waking up with us at 5:00 a.m., we're right around 55 and 56.

we've cooled down a little bit. we're back up to around 55 to 58 depending on the location. thankfully nobody less than 55 and seeing a much warmer afternoon than what we were seeing a day ago. temperatures about 20 to 25 degrees warmer so significant warmup. now, we're still not even at our average high for this time of year. not exactly seeing abnormal warmth but we were seeing abnormal cold yesterday. satellite and radar today, nice and quiet for now at least. we did see some pretty eventful weather earlier this morning and rainfall over the last 24 hours mainly kind of in the last 12 hours or so since midnight last night, .078 downtown. about 1/2 inch at columbia metro. st. matthews similar story. sumter at an inch and manning 1.56 our highest total at least in the localized area. we're going to see a nice dry setup. also, a little windy. winds right now out of the west and northwest at around 10 miles per hour.

little breezy at times. it will help evaporate a lot of that moisture. we'll soak up all the rain from last night's rainfall pretty quickly as that wind continues to bring in not only drier air but kind of helps evaporate processes as well. satellite and radar for us, nice and quiet for us for the time being. we're watching the next system and tracking that one. that potentially will come our way later today. we barely got rid of this one. this was moving off the coast and very fast moving system leaving the carolinas in its wake as of right now with some nice sunshine for us here especially along the -- if you're heading down i-20 towards atlanta, everything is nice and dry there. if you're looking back towards nashville, starting to get a little sketchy through those areas. pretty heavy rain and wintery implications of some of that system there. here's the low, it will track along the southern border of tennessee. i'm expecting it to lift off to the north. high pressure to the south should kick that to the north. we could see maybe a few scattered showers later on tonight.

our north and west. i don't expect to see that for us here. because of that, i'll keep us dry for now. don't be surprised by a rogue shower late, late tonight. i think that will certainly be the exception rather than the rule for most of us. probably see some clouds from it and i think that's just about it and that should keep our temperatures a little bit more mild tonight as that cloud cover moves in. 62 and 37 for thursday. a little bit cooler for thursday as a brief, brief cooldown and then as we get into friday, saturday and sunday, absolutely gorgeous. gamecocks see the baseball field for the first time this year. we couldn't ask for better >> couldn't see better weather for baseball. you know who else is looking good, u.s.c. women. they're returning home after making history on the court only the second time ever. >> apparently, it's all about girl power for some ladies who have a reason to be a little cocky this afternoon. we'll explain next.

the >> for the second time ever, the u.s.c. women's basketball team comes back from knoxville with a win over the lady vols. >> yeah, this is a time that comes along with a championship and tim hill has much more in the sports minute to win it. >> dawn staley continues to add to her impressive resume at u.s.c. tina roy and the gamecocks take a three point lead in the halftime after that buzzer-beater. tiffany mitchell, the two time

year, 12 points on rocky top putting the gamecocks ahead here for good. asia wilson carries u.s.c. with 25 points on the ballgame. and the gamecocks go on to win it 62-56 the final for the third straight season, u.s.c. will have at least a share of the sec championship. >> i think when you have players, you know, seniors, you got seniors who have played a lot of basketball for us, a lot of tough environments and it's familiar to them. so, you know, we don't fret about being down and playing in close games. i think we play our best basketball in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line. >> an outright sec championship will be on the line thursday at home against georgia. i'm tim hill. that's the abc sports columbia minute to win it. hope it helps get your tuesday off to a good start. >> thanks, tim. one last look at the seven day outlook.

that's next. >> some sunshine and warm air for your tuesday afternoon. look for highs in the low to mid 60's for us around town and tonight, around 42. partly cloudy skies. i think we'll stay dry. maybe a passing shower to our north and west. no sign of really any rain until the end of the weekend and start of next week and we'll see a lot of warm air and sunshine before we get to there. >> all right. that's our time.

see you back here at 6:00. >> announcer: put your dancing shoes on and get ready to boogie down, because we're having a delicious disco brunch. michael's shaking his s oove thing and whipping up a cheesy dish that'll keep the party going strong. plus, clinton's got an easy, delicious cocktail that'll leave you shouting, "dy-no-mite." and the culprit responsible for ransacking our pantry is finally revealed. it's time for our delicious disco brunch.

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